Editorial: It's a miracle: Money found

Our view: It appears voters were fed incorrect information by the state government to help get Proposition 30 passed.

We really hope this Proposition 30 thing works out for those who voted for it, especially since the rest of us are getting dragged along.

This newspaper opposed the measure, not so much because of its cost to the public, but because we don't trust the state with the amount of money it already takes from us. We certainly don't trust them with more.

Just a week after the election, we get another painful reminder that we were right.

It comes in the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office's report on the budget issued this week.

Somehow, the projected state deficit for next year has fallen from $13 billion to $1.9 billion. Proposition 30 will generate about $6 billion. Where did the rest of the money come from?

Gov. Jerry Brown's Finance Department says $1.4 billion came through what it called an "accounting change." It's unclear when they found it, but the Legislative Analyst's Office reported Wednesday that it was told about it a week earlier.

That would work out to the day after Election Day. Curious timing, eh?

We know a lot of the people who voted for Proposition 30 thought it meant more money for schools, universities, police and all their favorite causes, but it didn't. The schools will get a little more due to the Proposition 98 formula that gives them 41 percent of state revenues, but there were no promises for anything else.

Proposition 30 was a blank check. It wasn't sold as "vote for this and we'll give more money to (insert your cause)." It was sold as "vote for this and we won't cut money to (insert your cause)."

During the campaign we were repeatedly reminded of the famous National Lampoon magazine cover from 1973 that showed a black-and-white mutt looking out of the corner of its eyes at a large-caliber handgun pointed at its head. "Buy This Magazine," the headline stated, "Or We'll Kill This Dog."

People laughed, but they bought the magazine. It worked with Proposition 30 too, although there's less laughter.

We suspect the joy there is about its passage will fade when the problems Proposition 30 was supposed to solve don't go away.

With supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, that $6 billion-a-year is going to be far too attractive to Democrats to spend on mundane things like paying down the state's debt or making sure schools have the money they need.

After all, the legislative analyst is predicting a budget surplus a couple of years down the road.

The surplus is supposed to grow to $9 billion by 2017-18. Quite obviously, there's more than enough money to spend.

As we said, we hope this Proposition 30 thing works out. We really do. We don't expect that though.